OLPCorps SCC The Gambia

From OLPC

Fatou Darboe, Banking and Finance major, Fatou Gaye, Accounting major, and Abdoulie Samateh, Nursing major, are the members of our team. We presently attend Shoreline Community College in Seattle, Washington. Our objective is to focus on the rural areas. The children in the rural areas would benefit the most from receiving lap tops because they are not exposed to much technology. Most of the children in the rural areas live far from the city so they are not familiar with computers. These lap tops would give them the opportunity to explore various ways of learning.

This project will enable us to give out lap tops to the children of Gunjur Primary School, located in Gunjur, The Gambia. The Gambia is the smallest country in Africa, located in West Africa. It is surrounded by Senegal; its economy is dominated by agriculture, fishing and tourism. It has a population of “1,735,464 (July 2008 EST.)” The economy of the Gambia is unstable and lately life is very hard in the rural areas. Gunjur is located in one of those rural areas; we will serve the 5th graders at Gunjur Primary School. We chose this school because most of the people in that area are lower income families, and they cannot afford quality education for their children. We want to teach the children the basics about computers so that it can make education much more exciting for them and change their lives to a better and brighter future.

Our local partner is called QCell Company Limited. It is a new company started by Muhammed Jah, CEO and Managing Director of QuantumNet Group, a private company created in 1988 to meet The Gambia’s need for network service, information technology solutions and education. They provide fast, stable and secure internet connection to corporate and some residential customers. http://www.qanet.gm. QCell Company Limited was started by Muhammed Jah in 2008. It is one of only four GSM service providers in Gambia. http://www.qcell.gm.

We would carry out the project between June and August. The children will be out of school by this time, but they will be having summer classes. The summer classes are four days a week. We have made arrangements with the school principal to include the computer workshops in their schedule. We plan to go to the school every Monday through Thursday per week to help them operate the laptops and show them how to make good use of them so that they will be familiar with the laptops before we leave. We are willing to spend enough time with the students during school days and make sure that they gain knowledge from it. Two guys from QCell will go with us to the school to help the children learn how to use the lap tops. Each of us on the team has advanced computer skills and communication is not a problem because we speak the same language. We also have family in the Gambia so we have a place to stay, which will reduce our room and board costs significantly.

QCell Company Limited will follow up on our project by sending one of their representatives to the school once we are gone to continue to teach the children to make sure that they understand how to use the lap tops. After the workshop during summer school, the children can take the lap tops home because they would have already been comfortable and confident enough to access their lap tops at home. QCell will assist with making sure that they are able to have internet service at home and at school. Secondly, they have offered to voluntarily fix the lap tops in case of any problems. Once the instruction is completed, they are also willing to frequently keep in touch with the school’s principal and make visits to the school to make sure that the students are making the best use of this opportunity and by assisting other students at the school in learning how to use the laptop. We will also be in touch with the organization and the school principal to know what’s going on with the children with their laptops, whether it is advancing their education and also if they are receiving help from the organization.

We would appreciate the opportunity to work with OneLapTop Per Child Organization to help the children of Gunjur became technically capable and prepared for the future.